St. Luke's to double size of new emergency room

The exterior of St. Luke's Hospital-Anderson Campus in Bethlehem… (Emily Robson/Morning Call…)

June 19, 2012|By Charles Malinchak, Special to The Morning Call

The emergency room at the eight-month-old St. Luke's University Hospital-Anderson Campus in Bethlehem Township isn't large enough, but that will change in about a year after plans to nearly double its size were approved Monday night.

In a unanimous decision, the township commissioners approved a plan for a nearly 11,000-square-foot addition to the emergency room to the hospital off Freemansburg Avenue at Route 33.

Hospital Senior Vice President Robert Martin said after the meeting that the hospital can handle about 30,000 patients per year, which would double to about 60,000 annually with the addition.

Martin said when the hospital was built, it was projected more space may be needed in about five years.

"This is something we did not anticipate, but we have found it is necessary to expand to meet the growth," he said.

The architect of the project, Brian Cheatle of Hillsborough, N.J., said the single-story addition will maintain the current route for emergency vehicles to enter and exit and will contain about 32 rooms, some of which are to be larger and include rooms for specialized treatment.

Martin said the project will cost about $4 million and is expected to be completed by April or May.

The Anderson Campus is set on 500 acres with a 256,000-square-foot hospital that has 108 beds. It opened in November.

The commissioners also approved a plan for an expansion project at Rotating Machinery Services Inc., on Baglyos Circle in Lehigh Valley Industrial Park VI.

According to the plan, the additions include an 8,568-square-foot warehouse and a two-story office structure about 5,400 square feet.

The company website describes it as an after-market engineering firm servicing a range of turbomachinery that works out of a 14,000-square-foot facility that opened in 2007.